The fourth Thursday of November belongs to Thanksgiving, but the third Thursday belongs exclusively to Beaujolais Nouveau, the first wine of the harvest. This year, Beaujolais Nouveau Day falls on Thursday, November 20 and more than 35 million bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau are expected to be consumed in the months following the wine’s release.
This fruity, very young red wine is made from handpicked Gamay grapes, from the Beaujolais region and bottled just a few weeks after harvest. Thanks to a process called carbonic maceration, or whole berry fermentation, which allows the juice to be extracted from the grapes with a minimum of tannins, this young wine is best enjoyed immediately
Each year, people across the world celebrate the arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau on the third Thursday in November anywhere in the world. Because this is a wine that’s easy to drink and easy to pair, it has become associated with the eclectic Thanksgiving dishes that grace the tables of people of all cultures and ethnicities.
